Brain Damage Control (2009)

 Brain Damage Control

By Paul Krassner

High Times

2009

    When Phil Spector was sentenced 19 to life in prison for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson, I had a flashback to 1971 at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse.

     I was a guest of John Lennon and Yoko Ono for the celebration of Yoko's show, This is Not Here. The Videofrex, a counterculture video commune, was there to shoot a documentary titled, You're Not Here, Yoko 

    Nancy Kane recalls, "We were all going up for the opening, which would be jammed because John Lennon and Ringo Starr were going to be there too. And it was true.  In the crush of people, there went Ringo. He was being swept past us into the main gallery. There he goes, "Hi, Ringo!", he was gone, but we could play our video as much as we wanted to. There he goes, "Hi Ringo". There he goes again, "Hi Ringo."

     It was, in fact, Ringo's birthday, [sic] and I found myself sitting on the floor in a large room where a group of friends and associates sang "Happy Birthday" to him, and then "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" with each individual singing a chorus. The Women's Liberation Movement was flourishing at the time, and I sang, " She's Got the Whole World in Her Hands."

     Later, I was about to enter another large room with John and Yoko. It was quite crowded. As I walked through the door, Phil Spector stood up at the far side of the room, pointed at me, and shouted,  "You killed. Lenny Bruce!"  I was stunned. Lenny and I had been close friends, and I was the editor of his autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People.  

    Rather than ratchet up the sour vibe that  Specter had just created, I immediately turned around and left the room. John and Yoko ran after me, apologizing profusely for Spector's insane outburst.  A A couple of years later, at the A &M recording studio, he pointed a gun at Lennon, chasing him through the corridors. 

    That incident at the museum wasn't the only occasion I've been falsely accused. I was also accused of being an accessory to an attempted assassination of Andy Warhol by Valerie Solanas, author of The SCUM Manifesto (SCUM =  the Society for Cutting Up Men).

     Warhol cohort Paul Morrissey said in a 1996 interview with actor Taylor Mead that in the spring of 1968, "Solanas approached underground newspaper publisher Paul Krassner for money, saying, "I want to shoot Olympian press honcho Maurice Grandis." He gave her $50, enough for a .32 automatic pistol."

     Actually, she asked me to lend her $50 for food, which I did, sympathizing with the anguish of a poor pamphleteer. But that was on Friday. On Monday, I took my four-year-old daughter, Holly, out for lunch. On the way, we bumped into Valerie just a block from Warhol's loft. We talked a little. Then Holly and I went to Brownies, a vegetarian restaurant.

     Minutes later, we were seated at a table, and Valerie walked in. "Do you mind if I join you?" She asked. " Yeah, I do mind, actually, but only because I don't get a chance to see my daughter that often." "Okay, I understand," she said and left. 

    Five hours later, she shot Warhol, seeking revenge out of the paranoid belief that he had ruined her literary career. Valerie could have bought the gun with that $50, but if I had known that her intention was to kill Warhol, I might have been able to talk her out of it. Then again, she could have shot me and Holly right there in that restaurant. What do you mean? I can't join you for lunch. Bang, bang. That easy. That's horrible. That's absurd.